Confederate Veteran

The Attack on Fort Johnson

Volume 23, September 1915, page 413

Thirteen men and a few stragglers hold Fort Johnson on James Island against a Federal boat assault, and take the assaulting party prisoner. Brown names every man of the thirteen.

Signed “By J. J. Brown, Goodwater, Ala.”

Cite as

J. J. Brown, “The Attack on Fort Johnson,” Confederate Veteran 23, no. 9 (September 1915)*: 413.

The page in the scanned volume The whole volume at the Internet Archive

Published: September 1915issue inferred
Volume: 23, no. 9
Pages: 413
Author: J. J. Brown

Ends at “…I should be glad to hear from them.” The note from Charles Howard is a separate item.

THE ATTACK ON FORT JOHNSON. BY J. J. BROWN, GOODWATER, ALA,

I have often wondered why nothing has ever been written about the attack on Fort Johnson, Charleston, S. C., on the 2d of July, 1864. The Federals made an attack on the lower end of the island and drew all of our forces away from Fort Johnson except thirteen men there and a few others on a battery who were cut off from us.

On the morning of July 3 the Federals advanced in barges (about fifty men in each) from Battery Gregg, Morris Island. We had a hand-to-hand fight. Some crawled over breastworks and were captured; some fifteen of the Yankees were killed. After we drove them from the breastworks, they went to a Brooks gun and made an unsuccessful attempt to turn it on us. They were forced to surrender. During the fight some stragglers came to us, making about eighty men in all with us. Our side lost P. F. Brown, John Atkinson, and Sergeant Stubblefield. We belonged to Company E, Heavy Artillery. The fight lasted about thirty minutes. We fired seventeen shots from brass cannon. Among the thirteen men were John Atkinson, M. B. Brown, P. F. Brown, R. L. Evins, W. D. Buckhalter, Arthur Weeks, F. M. Woodward, W. H. Mosley, Zep Owens, Mat Taylor, and J. J. Brown.

The Yankees were commanded by Carl Hoyd, of the 52d Pennsylvania Regulars. Hoyd said that was the first time he ever made a failure. If we had not been successful, Charleston would have been lost.

If any are living who were in that fight, I should be glad to hear from them.

Charles Howard writes from Jackson, La.: "I want to get all the volumes of the Veteran and leave them for my baby boy to read, when he grows up, as a complete history of the Confederacy and the South, I am a son of a Confederate soldier. My father was with Stonewall Jackson,"

The scan

What the scanner made of this page, and what it is in the printed original.

“a Brooks gun” is a Brooke gun; “Carl Hoyd” is Col. Henry M. Hoyt.

Editorial notes

Statements in this article that are wrong, doubtful, or worth setting beside another account. The article’s own text is left as printed.

“the attack on Fort Johnson, Charleston, S. C., on the 2d of July, 1864 … On the morning of July 3 the Federals advanced in barges”
The article gives two dates in three sentences. The assault was made at dawn on 3 July 1864; the 2nd is when the diversion drew the garrison away, which is what Brown describes first.
“The Yankees were commanded by Carl Hoyd, of the 52d Pennsylvania Regulars”
Col. Henry M. Hoyt of the 52nd Pennsylvania Volunteers — not Regulars — later governor of Pennsylvania. He was among those taken.
“some fifteen of the Yankees were killed … They were forced to surrender”
Broadly right, and the scale is worth stating: the Federals lost some 140 men taken prisoner at Fort Johnson that morning, against a garrison Brown numbers at thirteen when the boats appeared.
“If we had not been successful, Charleston would have been lost”
Overdrawn. Fort Johnson mattered, but the Federal boat attack was a raid in support of the operations on James Island, not a stroke at the city.